Wickford Junction Averaging 150 Riders Per Day

It’s been more than a month since the . According to transportation officials, ridership has been slow but steady during that time with an average of 150 riders per day.

“It’s certainly not unexpected, especially entering into the summer season with people talking more about vacations less about work trips,” said Stephen Devine, chief of Intermodal Planning at the Rhode Island Department of Transportation.

Devine added that transit services tend to see slow growth, as evidenced by the opening of the commuter rail service in Providence in 1988.

“We only had about 150 to 200 people per day for a couple of years when we first opened Providence,” said Devine. “Today, we now have over 2,000 riders per day and many more trains.”

The amount of cars in the parking garage (which can hold a maximum of 1,100 cars) has been steadily growing, according to Wickford Junction’s project manager Jim Eng, with an average of 60 to 70 per day. Wickford Junction’s owner Bob Cioe is remaining optimistic about the future of the station.

“He agrees it's going to take time to get the ridership up,” said Eng, who said he speaks to Cioe daily about the station’s progress. “He understands that the economy is down right now. As the economy grows, so will ridership.”

Those waiting for weekend service at Wickford will have to wait a bit longer, however.

“The biggest bang for your buck is when you serve commuters,” said Devine. “They’re the Monday through Friday, peak hour work trips. The off-peak hours are something we tend to look at after when we’ve developed the service.”

Devine added that weekend service may come to Wickford and the Interlink at T.F. Green sooner than it did for Providence, which took many years.

For now, transportation officials and the Cioes are seeing new ways in which the commuter rail can be used. Recently, an elementary school class took the train up to Boston for a field trip. Corporations looking to take business trips up to Boston are also looking into using the rail service.

Devine says DOT and MBTA officials are waiting until September and October, after the summer season, to analyze the ridership data.